Water

Life without clean water can seem unimaginable but for millions of people it's a daily reality.

WaterAid/Eliza Powell

The crisis

Water is a necessity for everyone and yet it remains a luxury to many people around the world.

Every person needs a sustainable supply of clean water: for drinking, washing, cooking and cleaning. It is a basic human right and still there are 844 million people that do not have clean water.

To date, governments, institutions and service providers around the world haven’t done enough to ensure clean water reaches the poorest and most marginalized people leaving millions of people underserved.

In many countries, taps, wells and pipes delivering clean water simply do not exist and even where they do, water supply services are often not affordable or accessible, or aren’t designed to last.

WaterAid/Jordi Ruiz Cirera

Right now:

844 million people don’t have clean water.

(WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) Report 2017)

31% of schools don’t have clean water.

(UNICEF, Advancing WASH in Schools Monitoring, 2015)

If everyone, everywhere had clean water, the number of diarrheal deaths would be cut by a third.

(Tropical Medicine and International Health, 2014)

What we've done together

WaterAid/Ernest Randriarimalala

Since 1981 we've reached 24.9 million people with clean water.

Together, we work with communities to set up practical and sustainable water projects that meet their needs. Hardware, such as taps and rainwater harvesting tanks are always backed up by training on maintenance and management, making sure that the health benefits of clean water are maximized. To ensure sustainability we use technologies that are low-cost, appropriate to the local area, and can be easily maintained by the communities who use them.

We also work with local partners to ensure capacity and skills are developed at a local level. Local partners include:

Local non-government organisations (NGOs)

Local and national government departments

Private utility companies

We invest in local partner organizations to enable them to deliver lasting changes for their communities. We typically provide financial support, training and technical advice, as well as help with planning, budgeting and organizational development.
As partners grow stronger, they become less reliant on WaterAid's technical and financial support and can seek funds from other sources. When this happens, we often start working with newer or less well-established partners, with the cycle of training and development starting again.